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<title>Neil has killed by Connibvallejos</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594089">Neil has killed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connibvallejos/pseuds/Connibvallejos'>Connibvallejos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Analysis, Character Study, Neil has killed, neil Josten has killed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:56:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>846</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594089</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connibvallejos/pseuds/Connibvallejos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Why I think neil has killed</p><p>This is an analysis, not a story nor really a fic</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Neil has killed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Neil has killed</p><p>I think that neil, as a narrator, wouldn’t have let us (the readers) know he had killed before until he killed someone in the course of the book. I mean, we didn’t know he had had alcohol before until he came back from Edgar Allan. We didn’t know his birth name was Nathaniel until they called him that. We didn’t know he had been taught at least the basic of knife use as a weapon until Renee offered to teach him. We didn’t know a lot of shit until it actually happened in the books, and there’s a lot more we don’t know (at least the details) of.</p><p>It’s kind of implied the way Nathan’s direct abuse to him was implied. Not much was explicitly said about it more than the hot iron. It’s all implied, and it shows in the way he says he learned to keep at arms distance from early childhood, how Nathan is the only thing that really seems to freeze him, how he can’t seem to be able to disobey his fathers orders, even being the little mouthy shit he is, even after so many years, even knowing he was going to die soon and be tortured anyway. (As if it’s ingrained in him. It’s called conditioning- not the ok type). It’s not talked about unless it has direct repercussions, because neil as the narrator doesn’t feel like talking about it. Of course Nathan’s abuse is way more obvious than the prospect of Neil being a murderer. Nathan was something that terrified Neil completely, while death and murder was pretty normalized for him (and justified, at least to his eyes, in most cases).</p><p>He shares more about Mary because she’s the one that conditioned him, ‘cause he sees so much of what she told him not to do everywhere, because he hated her ways, yeah, but he also loved her. He talks about her in a way that excuses her mistreating as protecting him, and I think that’s also the reason why he’s a bit more graphic when talking about what she did to him. He spent all his life glued to her hip. Even though they didn’t talk about much more than the weather it was inevitable for him to talk about her, cause her conditioning was so much of the reason behind Neil’s own actions (and thoughts). This takes me back to my point- neil mostly only shares from his past what’s directly connected with what’s happening.</p><p>His reaction to death being minimal is not surprising at all, considering all he must have witnessed in his early childhood. He wasn’t so perturbed with the man his father killed in front of Kevin and Riko because he had never seen death before, but because he knew that wasn’t a normal thing for other kids to see, and to his eyes Kevin and Riko were his first possible friends.</p><p>Then, as he grew older, he must have continued seeing death as something close. Not only as a possibility or a destiny for himself, but as something he was always surrounded by. Even if at the beginning he had not killed, his mother had. Continuously. Again, something I don’t think was mentioned in the books but obvious if you think about it. They couldn’t have gone eight years on the run without having killed anybody, without having killed any of the people who wanted to kill them. It’s impossible he had never seen his mother kill anybody.</p><p>And when they were escaping and his mother was driving? We know he knew how to use a gun, slept with one under his pillow, and his first instinct at being woken up was to look for it.</p><p>He knows Andrew killed Tilda, he knows it was premeditated murder, and he never once doubted it reasonable. If abuse was enough for him to get to the conclusion that she deserved it, then people actively doing their best to kill him (and often attaining to hurt him badly) are more than enough reasons for him to have them killed.</p><p>Of course he would have killed drake. Of course he thought Renne’s rapist deserved it.Of course he doesn’t feel guilty at all at the thought of him being guilty of Riko’s death.</p><p>And honestly, “it wasn’t anyone important”?? It just cements my theory that neil has killed before. If he had murdered during the course of the books it would probably been written like “this wasn’t the first time neil has killed though” or something between those lines. Just as we found out he used alcohol as pain relief.</p><p>Eight years on the run, access to murder weapons and many people constantly threatening his life are enough for me to think that neil has, in fact, killed people. Then add a ruthless mother who taught him that surviving was first priority, him being exposed to murder since his very early childhood and his forced lack of empathy for anyone outside of himself and his mother. Flight alone is not always a viable option.</p>
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